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Tuesday, September 9, 2014

This summer, after years of both working in social media and
having active personal accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, a spate of
ugly events caused me to shut down my computer and walk away. I didn’t plan
this, nor did I have any idea if I would ever open it again. My computer
remained shut for two months.

At first, I walked around in a daze, unsure of where I fit
or what I was supposed to be doing. I scrubbed my counters. I completely
re-landscaped my front yard. I tried writing with pen and paper but it felt
weird and I was too upset by aforementioned events to write anyway. I decided
that if I didn’t know where I should be, then I would just ‘be.” I walked my
neighborhood in the quiet of the early mornings. I meditated. If I arrived
early to an appointment, I did nothing but observe my surroundings, while the
people around me sat with hunched shoulders, heads slumped forward like human
question marks, their eyes focused on their phones and the postage stamp-sized
world inside. I watched them plummet down the rabbit hole, completely tuning
out to the here and now. I doubt any of them even knew I was in the room. I
felt like a sober girl at the cocktail party of life.

After a few weeks, I could feel I was changing. I noticed
that gradually my posture improved because my head was above my shoulders where
it belonged. I was aware and engaged with my kids, not distracted. They, in
turn, behaved better, and I had a level of patience I had forgotten I was
capable of. I was experiencing a strange, unfamiliar feeling. Some might call
it calm. While driving, I no longer checked my email at every stoplight.
Instead I watched the characters that walked past; Two homeless men sharing a
meal in a fort they had built under a shopping cart. A hispanic woman with a
significant limp who crossed the street every morning at 7:42 am. The veteran
in a wheelchair with the American flag mounted on the back, pledging his allegiance
to the country for which he sacrificed his legs. I had been missing all of this
for so long. For anyone to miss this is a shame, but for a writer, it is
practically a crime.

I stole away with my family for a weekend in Idyllwild where
I sat in a hammock and read books, or sometimes just watched the leaves shimmer
in the breeze. I noticed things, like the way color and light changes within a
flickering moment. I noticed the life buzzing right in my own front yard – for
instance, I now know that Monarch butterflies do not welcome Painted Zebras
into their habitat, and squirrels rub the sides of their faces against the
rough pine bark to get sap off their whiskers. Suddenly I understood that I was
living in an ordered Universe, and this made me feel safe and at peace. This
also felt more important to me than anything I had read on Facebook.

I’m not knocking social media. I have met wonderful people
and had incredible opportunities come my way through it, not to mention that
working as a social media manager is what has paid my bills for the majority of
this year. I’m grateful for it, while also having a new awareness of the dire
need for balance.

I came back slowly to social media, and saw that nothing had
changed while I was gone. The same problems and arguments raged on, just like
they did before. I noticed right away how my brain waves changed when I engaged
online. I became more irritable, easily distracted, my thoughts scattered. At
the same time I was happy to be re-connected to the beautiful community I’ve
found online.

My new challenge is to remain mindful of the time I allot
for checking in with friends and colleagues, to focus on and share positive
posts, and then to shut the computer and check back in with the world around
me: to feel my feet on the floor, take in the sights around me, notice my
breath. Like waking from a dream, re-entry into the real world takes a minute,
but I’ve rediscovered that the world outside is a glorious place. I’m also
reacquainting myself with my world inside – and that is where the real fun
begins.

Here is an interesting article author Dani Shapiro just
wrote in the New York Times about our reliance on social media: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/memoir-status-update